Tag Archives | Libel

Joseph Farah (et al.) sued Esquire Magazine over a spoof article Esquire published online that Farah claims destroyed the salability of the book, Where’s the Birth Certificate? by Jerome Corsi. Farah lost when his case was dismissed under the DC Anti-SLAPP law (and for other reasons). You can read about the case from my various articles on it.

The real issue in the appeal was not whether Esquire Magazine defamed Farah, but whether the case should have been dismissed rather than tried. Plaintiffs have decided to try again, requesting that the case be heard by the full circuit court, en banc.

A hearing of a case by the full circuit is discretionary (requiring a majority of the judges not recused in favor), not a right, and in the District of Columbia, certain principles apply. Hoping for a better result is not grounds for a hearing by the full circuit. Here are the sorts of things the DC Circuit considers en banc:

resolving an apparent conflict in the prior decisions of panels of the court;

overruling an old or obsolete decision which, although still technically valid as precedent, has plainly been rendered obsolete by subsequent legislation or other developments; and

overruling a more recent precedent which, due to an intervening Supreme Court decision, or the combined weight of authority from other circuits, a panel is convinced is clearly an incorrect statement of current law.

Klayman’s argument is that this case is of “exceptional importance” dealing as it does with limits on the protection of satirical speech. He does not make any argument that existing precedent is insufficient, conflicting or outdated. Klayman’s essential argument is that the decision was wrong for various reasons, already rejected by the Circuit Court panel who denied his appeal.

I won’t get into the Lanham Act angle—interested readers can read the briefs. What I do want to mention is that part of an Anti-SLAPP dismissal involves an assessment of the likelihood that a plaintiff could prevail at trial, and I certainly consider it doubtful that Farah and Corsi could show that they were actually damaged by the Esquire article (beyond its satirical purpose that they be laughed at). Klayman argues that the Esquire article is libel per se (and damages need not be proven) because it accuses Farah and Corsi of a crime, citing Raboya v. Shrybman & Associates1; however, Klayman never explains exactly what the crime is when someone writes a book with “factual inaccuracies” (the actual words that Esquire satirically puts into Farah’s mouth). If “commercially defrauding the American Public” means putting “factual inaccuracies” in a book, then this is a crime that Farah and Corsi are arguably guilty of many times, along with a host of other authors.

From my layman’s viewpoint, the issues are clear cut and the DC Circuit will not endorse a hearing en banc. Sometimes there is a published written order with explanation when petitions for hearing en banc are decided.

1This is a curious case to cite in that the defendant successfully had the libel per se count dismissed. The Court took a strict view of what constituted a crime. If anything, this decision seems to hurt Klayman’s case.

The result in one Massachusetts lawsuit says it is not. Clive McFarlane wrote a comment posted on the Worcester Telegram & Gazette web site titled “Birther’s True Colors are Showing” referring to attorney Robert Delle who in a telephone conversation with McFarlane had expressed a lack of confidence about the authenticity of the President’s birth certificate.

The dispute centered over a matter of interpretation of where the middle ground lies and whether it’s fair to label someone a birther because they say they can’t reach a conclusion about the birth certificate without some kind of further investigation or study.

Judge C. Jeffrey Kinder threw out the suit, finding that such statements centered on McFarlane’s interpretation of the phone conversation. You can read the story at The Docket: The news blog of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Also the court stated that the newspaper cannot be sued for something a commenter says on the their web site. The Court said that it was alleged, but not shown, that McFarlane was an employee of the paper, something very likely given that the email address associated with the article was at the newspaper.

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